YouTube is cool, but…

I’ve seen lots of great videos recently on YouTube. But I’ve always been suspicious of sites that have sleazy banner ads. I noted to day that YouTube is going one step further: when using the search function, 5/6 times rather than getting what I sought, I was presented with a cheesy flashing banner, “You’re the 1,000,000th visitor! You’ve won a Free* laptop! Claim within 080 [insert countdown counter here] seconds!”

For fun I clicked the link, and indeed if you sign up for spam, plus 6 trial offers of various products, and get 2 households that you refer to also sign up for all that junk, they claim they’ll send you a laptop.

Now I’m ignorant of the law, but isn’t telling lies in advertising illegal? (Yes, I was the 1,000,000th visitor many times today!)